CHAPTER 14.
I Do Yet Another Thing I Have Never Done Before [image]Those persons, who keep their bodies in a state of health, by sufficient exercise, can always be guided by the calls of hunger. They can eat when they feel hungry, and stop when hunger ceases; and then they will calculate exactly right. -p. 98 AFTER THE DEATH OF Captain Brown, the Missourians who were prepared to hang, shoot, dismember, kill, and otherwise clear us out of K.T began to gather in the border towns and prepare their springtime strategy. Some of their papers came into town, and in one, the very voice of the Kickapoo Rangers, the editor reflected our own sentiments back to us in a way that seemed astounding, given the horror of Captain Brown"s death. Declaring that "forbearance has now ceased to be a virtue," the editor called for the proslave faction to "strike your piercing rifle-b.a.l.l.s and your glittering steel to their black and poisonous hearts!" Their strategy seemed to be like that of a man who attacks another in a barroom and then, when he has his victim at the point of death, starts screaming that he is being terribly injured and must kill his victim in order to save himself. For the most part, these papers and the reports of what the proslave faction said of us were almost more inflaming than their actions, because they seemed calculated to insult us and deny the truth of what was all around us. Many in Lawrence, I have to say, were nicely warmed by resentment of these insults.
But for others, myself among them, the prolonged frigid weather made even the prospect of being hanged, shot, dismembered, killed, or otherwise cleared out rather an abstract one. The possibility of being frozen to death was distinctly more likely. Every day at the end of January and the beginning of February, gangs of men went out on the ice of the river dressed in every item of clothing that they could find, plus buffalo skins and blankets, like the Indians, to chop wood and carry it into town on every form of sledge or sleigh. The horses and mules wore blankets, too, though they were as furry as they could be. Most days, Charles and Thomas went with these parties, though some evenings the two of them were detailed to guard the town. No one knew when the Missourians would cross the border and make their attack. On the one hand, we feared it would be soon, and given Lawrence"s position, we would be unable to defend ourselves, but on the other hand, we feared it would be later, when there would be many more of them.
Some days, Charles and Thomas went to Leavenworth to get the mail, only to find once they got there that the mail had been stolen or destroyed in Missouri. Of course, the postmaster at Leavenworth didn"t say that the absent mail was stolen or destroyed, but all of Lawrence knew that it had been-enough got through to indicate what had not gotten through: all sorts of people were expecting bank drafts, letters, and goods that their relatives and friends in the east proposed to send or had sent, but they disappeared in Missouri.
Louisa kept her fires going and put on another light shawl, and when the men were out, she marched back and forth between our two rooms, knitting as she went. Unlike me, she was an excellent needlewoman, and it took her only a short time to knit up a cap or some mittens from her stock of wool. Most of these she knitted in children"s sizes and gave away to anyone she heard of who was poor or cold. I sat beside the fire, doing my best to get through our sewing. Louisa was alive to the rights and wrongs of our cause, and it was at this time that she somehow got to be acquainted with General Lane, an acquaintanceship that, as I have said, soon extended to Charles and lasted as long as General Lane was alive. And yet, even though General Lane and Louisa quickly became intimates, there was never the least gossip that their friendship was of the wrong sort. Considering General Lane"s well-deserved reputation, this was a great testament to Louisa"s strength of character.
I doubt that General Lane remembered from one time to the next that he had ever met me, but I certainly noticed him, for he was very noticeable and liked to be noticed. Perhaps knowing that he would never pa.s.s for a figure of elegance, he adopted quite the opposite standard and dressed very roughly, even for a Kansan. But he was a compelling-looking gentleman, as Louisa would say (often did say), with thick dark hair, pleasing, regular features, and a surpa.s.singly intense gaze. His great rival then and for the rest of his life was Dr., then Governor, Robinson. Of the two, Robinson had lived the wilder and more exciting life, with stints in California and the war in Mexico, but he had the looks and demeanor of a steady man of middle age, while General Lane, who was ambitious, certainly, but had simply come to K.T. from Indiana, had the looks and demeanor of a great romantic adventurer.
General Lane, Louisa told me, was utterly convinced that the Missourians were poised to attack, and a few days after the incident in Leavenworth, he wrote two letters to President Pierce himself. Though they were over the signatures of both General Lane and Governor Robinson, they sounded much more like Lane, the hotheaded one, than Robinson, who was always advising patience. At any rate, I was alarmed: one letter said that we had authentic information that an attack was imminent, and the other that the Missourians had artillery to use against us (and both said that they planned to "butcher" the Free Staters of Kansas). Copies of the letters, or papers people said were copies, got pa.s.sed around all over Lawrence, and I won"t say that everyone thought the Missourians were either ma.s.sed or poised to attack. Owing to his recent experience, my husband thought they were ready to do anything but only "poised" to take advantage of any situation that might offer itself for the many to waylay the few. Thomas and Louisa, in fact, had a small debate about this very subject a few days after the letters were carried off to Washington.
"If we think in military terms," said Thomas, "we"ll get it all wrong. However much they call themselves captains and lieutenants, they are but bullies, and they think as bullies think. We"ve the arms and the men to handle them."
"The Missourians are but a portion of the forces arraying themselves at the border, and rapidly getting to be the smaller portion. Real military men from all over the south are ready to stir this pot and see what bubbles to the surface, if you ask me," said Louisa, with a sip of her tea (tea was plentiful and hot every night). "General Lane hears from his sources that slave-power newspapers are filled with advertis.e.m.e.nts for regiments of soldiers."
"Bands of emigrants-"
"Bands of armed emigrants, with no women, no children, no plows or sickles or seed."
Thomas ostentatiously pulled his shawl more closely about his shoulders and chuckled. "I hope they get here soon, because they will surely get a surprise if they do."
Charles interposed. ""Anyway, we"ve elected our officials. Jim Lane says they have to comport themselves like elected officials now, or we an"t got a chance. I think calling for troops to protect us is an excellent strategy. Puts us in the right but shows them we know our way around these things."
"We are already in the wrong, according to them. I don"t know if there is any strategy that will put us in the right," said Thomas. ""And another thing here is that we"re talking up these Ruffians as if they know what they"re doing. Didn"t we just finish a war, so called? Weren"t you a prisoner, so called? And what did you do? Why, you held up a blanket so the fire wouldn"t go out, while they drank themselves silly and gambled themselves poor. When we write to the President in these terms like "butcher" and "artillery," we"re convincing ourselves to be scared off, and we forget what we already know."
"It could have easily been worse," said Charles.
"I do not believe that," said Thomas.
"However it was," said Louisa, "they may learn their lesson like anyone else. If we count on them remaining ignoramuses, then we are the fools. According to General Lane-and he told me these things himself-we are sitting here in the cold thinking all of these matters are far away, but the United States is getting ready to settle them and settle them quickly."
I said, "Frankly, speaking of the cold, how can they have slaves here? Cold like this would be death to slaves. It"s practically death to us, and the Indians can hardly abide it, either."
"I"d like to see them bring a few slaves into this cold," said Louisa. "You don"t give a child a little open-necked shirt and send him barefoot into this weather. They"d soon have to dress those slaves like men and feed them properly, and then they might learn something!"
In general, this is a fair example of how the talk went in the weeks following the letters to President Pierce. Folks disagreed about the extent of our danger and how to deal with it, but no one doubted that the government in Washington would act to save us once alerted to it.
Unfortunately, one thing that Louisa did not have in her rooms above the wheelwright"s shop was a door, or rather, there was one door, but it was used at the top of the stairs. There was no door between the two rooms. For two newly married couples, this const.i.tuted something of an inconvenience. I felt my husband, the husband I had known out on our claim when we were all alone together, slipping away from me. I discussed this, obliquely, with both Thomas and Louisa, saying that I spent more time with Louisa and Thomas with Charles Bisket than ever we spent with our spouses. Each replied characteristically. Thomas gave me a slow, knowing smile, acknowledging in his way the justice of my concern, but then said, "My friends on the ship see their wives perhaps once every two years or so, and my father and brothers spend twelve hours out of every twenty-four in the factory, then three or four more a.s.sociating with other sailmakers, or other townsmen, or other members of their party. On Sundays, when there are no other activities, the whole family troops off to services, morning and afternoon." Now his smile grew warmer, and he put his arm around my waist. "My mother and father call each other Mr. and Mrs. Newton. Perhaps they"ve forgotten each other"s Christian names." And he gave me a kiss. Louisa was more blunt. "Marriage," she said, "mustn"t be too sweet, my dear, or it would start to cloy. Domestic delights are like Turkish delight, best taken in small bites after a larger meal of Christian endeavor. I do not actually care to come to know Charles Bisket quite as well as I came to know Ruben Wheelwright. Marriage needs a little distance as a preservative." And in addition, I gave myself to understand that not only would our circ.u.mstances pa.s.s, but I ought to be thoroughly grateful for them. Every shivering, pale, and suffering countenance that I met on the street smote my conscience each time I questioned our situation. Surely what my sisters had always said, that I was spoiled to the core and thought only of myself, was true.
Nevertheless, I couldn"t help regretting that our favorite amus.e.m.e.nt of former times, reading aloud, went by the board, as Louisa preferred to converse and Charles preferred to sing. With much encouragement from Louisa, Charles sang every evening for a period. He had a high, fluting tenor voice, and he liked any kind of song. In the spring, the two were planning to purchase some sort of piano or melodeon, or even a little concertina, for him to accompany himself on. Some nights, others came in and sang parts, and these evenings went late. I am sure many of the singers were singing, not for their supper, but for their warmth.
On the coldest nights, my nephew Frank slept near the fire in our room, fully clothed and wrapped in blankets. Otherwise, he stayed down in the shop. If there were other boys there from time to time, some of the boys who had come out to K.T. without families or money, just hoping to see what was doing and make something of it, neither Louisa nor any other of the adults cared. And they were a hardy bunch, as we could not keep a fire in the stove in the shop all night. One of Frank"s a.s.sociates was the oldest Lacey boy, whose name was Roger. He was perhaps a year older than Frank, and considerably taller and brawnier. At fourteen, he had almost the size and strength of a man, and he had quite a head of hair-it stood straight up, so strongly that he could hardly press it down with a hat. On mornings when he came by, we saw that he would have combed it down with some sort of grease, or water, but as the day went on, it persisted in rising, so that by evening it was standing again. Roger had permission of his parents to go out with the men cutting wood on the riverbanks, and Frank sought the same permission of me. All I could think of was Missourians hiding in the trees and picking off the woodcutters one by one- had I had the murderous intent that we allowed in the Missourians, that"s what I would have done-but there had been no incidents, and so I let Frank go. In general, I had let Frank fall away from all civilizing influences, I had to admit. He could have gone to school-a man in Lawrence, I heard, ran a school whenever he had the wood to keep his schoolhouse warm-but Frank never even saw the place. He could have more frequently gone to church, but what with the war and the cold and sickness and the overall alarms and difficulties of K.T. life, there weren"t all that many services for any of us to go to. He could have kept company with Louisa and me, and we might have improved him as the company of women is widely said to improve men and boys, but with all the friendliness in the world, he managed to slip away. K.T. was a boy"s adventure, that was for sure.
By the end of January, I had now written two letters to my sisters since Frank"s arrival, in which I was careful to portray my care of him as responsible. My conscience smote me a bit. Only Frank and I considered my handling of him remotely responsible. Thomas thought he should be in school, and Louisa thought he should be gainfully employed. That he made a few dollars each week with his trades didn"t impress her. She said, "My dear, it"s a fact that merchants are a cancer upon the honest labor of those who actually produce a beautiful or useful object by the skill of their hands. We must vow between ourselves whenever possible to honor men"s or women"s labor by meeting them face-to-face and giving them our money ourselves, or better still, offering them the fruits of our own labor in barter. K.T. will be a true paradise when none of these goods in the stores that come from the east are available and all have been replaced by objects of Kansas manufacture, objects that we may thank their creators for personally!" She was vociferous in her urging that I steer Frank toward smithing or milling of some sort, "before his course is set." But Frank"s was a boat not easily steered, small though it was, and I had just begun my third letter to my sisters, and to Roland, with news of Frank: My dearest sisters, I write to inform you that all here are surviving the cold weather as well as might be expected. My husband got the frostbite twice, and I have gotten it only once in a toe and once in my nose, but we are fully recovered. My nephew Frank has avoided the frostbite altogether, though he is outdoors and active all the day long. You may be sure that he is a good boy-he is supporting himself and bringing home some money to me, and is respectful at all times. He told me to tell you, brother Roland, that he has traded his old rifle for a Sharps carbine and he likes it very much. He advises you to get one for yourself as soon as possible, and asks me to tell you particularly that they are manufactured in Connecticut, in case you want to know that. Let me say here that the school has stopped running because of the cold, I had no actual personal knowledge of the school or the schoolmaster.
but I fully intend to send him there as soon as it resumes. You have perhaps read in the papers about our troubles here. I won"t say that things have been easy and here I left off for a day or two.
It was just that day, a Sunday, that Frank showed us that he had gotten further out of hand than I imagined. The night had not been one of the very coldest ones, and so Frank had slept downstairs. Sometimes in the mornings when he got up early and had some money, he went over to the Cincinnati House or the Free State Hotel for something to eat. When he didn"t show up for breakfast, I thought little of it. Thomas ate his corncakes and drank his tea and went off himself, to ride with Charles to Leavenworth. Though they didn"t expect the mail to be there, they were obliged to go for it, as every man and woman in Lawrence was obliged to stay as far as possible out of the wrong. But soon after leaving, Thomas returned. For once, he banged open the door and shouted my name. As soon as he did so, I could hear Louisa in the next room jumping out of bed and throwing on her wrapper, alarmed as I was at the tone of his voice. Jeremiah was gone.
We did not think of Frank, of course, we thought of the Missourians, especially those Missourians, never mentioned but always in the backs of our minds, who had possibly once owned Jeremiah.
I exclaimed, "I put him in that corral with the others last night myself! Were any of the others... ?"
"Gate"s closed and locked, all the other horses are there. Jed Smith"s man hasn"t seen him all morning. He thought we"d gotten him out early and didn"t think to mention it, until I showed up!"
"There"s men everywhere, all night long. They come over here to sell things and buy whiskey," said Louisa, pinning up her hair. "I"ve often thought we in Lawrence are too trusting."
"What now?" I said.
If we had been entirely confident of our claim on Jeremiah, we would have reported his loss all over town.
Thomas said, "Bisket"s taking his horse to look around the other corrals. I should take the mule-"
"You can"t ride that mule!" said Louisa. "He"s a terrible bucker under saddle."
"I can," I said. "I want to, anyway. I"ve got to find Jeremiah!"
I can"t say that when I got out into the morning air I didn"t feel a moment"s recoil. Normally, Louisa and I tried to find things to do indoors until midday or after. But Jeremiah! My own horse, who nickered to me every time he saw me, who was as easy to ride and willing and pert and sound and neat as a horse could be! I caught Louisa"s mule, threw on my saddle and bridle, and mounted him from a rail of the corral fence. Jed Smith was talking to me the whole time. "I an"t ever lost a hoss before, Mrs. Newton. I got good fence here, and n.o.body comes around. Two men watch all night, and then Now1 and I are here all day. Unless some of them Indians spirited him away. I don"t know what to say, but it seems so impossible he"s gone that I know he"s here somewhere. I"m still looking." He switched his plug of tobacco from one cheek to the other and spit into the frozen muck of the corral.
"You didn"t see anyone around all morning, or over the night? Not Lawrence people, but strangers?"
"Naw. Dead quiet all night. I tell ya, ma"am, he"s gonna turn up, and we"ll say, Now, how did he git there? and maybe it"s something we"ll never know. Indians got medicine for everything...."
I coiled a length of rope around my waist. My fingers, though I was wearing gloves and mittens, were already stinging with the cold.
"Good luck to ya, ma"am!" Mr. Smith spit again, this time at the mule"s feet. "While you"re gone, I"ll think this one through."
Mr. Smith was from Michigan. While not of the brightest intelligence, he was kind with the horses and fed them well.
As I rode down Ma.s.sachusetts Street, looking in every corner and crevice for a wandering gray horse, I was trying to remember, if I ever knew it, the name of that family we"d run off Mr. Jenkins"s claim in the fall. I was just thinking that I could hardly remember what anyone had looked like, so hirsute and tangled had they been, the father and his sons, when I saw a group of men and horses gathered in a field, and then I saw Roger Lacey, who wore a distinctive green coat, and then I saw Jeremiah, and then I saw Frank, and then I realized that the men were having some races. A pair of horses and riders took off as I watched, causing the mule to buck and kick. I slapped him with the end of the reins and urged him forward. His big ears arrowed toward the running horses, and he nearly pulled me out of the saddle. "Harlan!" I cried, trying to hold him. "Are you a racing mule?" They had those in Missouri and Arkansas, I knew.
Frank ducked behind Jeremiah when he saw me, but I didn"t say anything except, "h.e.l.lo, Jeremiah." Roger Lacey backed away and vanished completely.
I waited. The mule curvetted and kicked out, but then settled down. The two runners finished their race and headed back to the group, led by three or four men who had manned the finish line. Lots of men were milling around, and I was the only woman. There was money in every hand, laughter and license in every face, and brown saliva flying everywhere. One of the men, with black whiskers up to his eyebrows, it seemed, and wearing red fingerless gloves and black instead of the usual blue denim trousers, took hold of the mule"s bridle. He said, "This is rough business, ma"am, and there"s unmannerly behaving going on. I don"t advise-"
"That gray is mine. And the boy hiding behind him is mine, too. And I don"t want my horse racing in the snow, if at all."
"Already raced, ma"am. Won, too. This snow an"t bad. Too dry to be slick. Hosses can really dig into it and git some speed. That gray"s a fine hoss. Beat Ben Matthews"s black over there all to-all to-all to pieces, ma"am."
I coughed to refrain from smiling and tried to marshal my most disapproving face. I said, "If he already raced, why is he standing around in this cold?"
From behind Jeremiah, Frank"s voice shouted, "I cooled him all out, Lidie! And his legs are tight as can be and cool, too!"
"He"s got another heat, ma"am. I mean, if you"ll let him, of course." He moved closer and lowered his voice. "The boys"ll be disappointed if he an"t gonna run, as they"ve got a load of money on the animal."
I didn"t answer immediately but instead kept quiet, looking at the man and at the horse, who looked at me, his gray, furry ears alert and his dark eyes in his white face intelligent and interested. Though he looked happy enough, I did not think that Jeremiah himself wanted to race. Frank peeked under Jeremiah"s neck, then eased around between me and the horse.
"He won by four lengths," said Frank. "And he wasn"t even trying."
"Did you gamble, Frank?" The man who was holding the mule"s bridle had by this time let go. Now he looked at the far horizon.
"Well, of course I did," said Frank, indignantly. "You think I"m a fool? I won six dollars."
"Frank! If your mother knew I let you-"
"On a dollar bet! That"s good investing, Cousin Lydia. And you know Pa don"t hold betting on horses against anybody. Betting on horses is a natural human act! Pa says you got to do it."
I was sure that Roland did say so, but I was equally sure that Thomas Newton did not say so. I hated Thomas"s disapproval. "Ma"am?" Another man came up behind me, and as I turned, he said, "Do you remember me? I am the Reverend Moss."
He was, indeed, the man who had sold me Jeremiah, and he was dressed in his Sunday preaching clothes, perhaps-a black suit, with a heavy Indian blanket over his shoulders.
"I recognize you, Reverend."
"Horse looks very good."
"He"s been satisfactory. Now, I think, I had better take him home. Frank, you find Roger, then you have to ride this mule. You"ve ridden Jeremiah enough today."
"Ma"am, my doctrinal view is that no harm and considerable good might be done for all these boys here if they were to see that horse run again. That horse is a beautiful example of G.o.d"s work, an inspiring example. Perhaps you know the Book of Job? He saith among the trumpets, Ha ha, and he smelleth the battle far off. That pa.s.sage could easily describe this horse."
I regarded Jeremiah, who regarded me in turn. He was calm and relaxed. The reverend remarked, idly, "The price I"d put on that horse now? Two hundred U.S. dollars. New York dollars. Philadephia dollars. In Lexington, Missouri, where they are indeed fond of horseflesh, I could get three hundred for this horse."
"My nephew took the horse without permission. My husband is out even now, beating the bushes, trying to find him. We were extremely concerned."
"I myself asked the boy, as soon as I recognized the horse, whether he had permission to bring him out, ma"am. And he said he did."
"Frank," I exclaimed, "lying, stealing, and gambling are enough sins for one Sunday! You get up on this mule and start home. Where is Roger? I will follow you smartly." I dismounted and hoisted him onto the mule, then slapped the animal"s rump so that he trotted quickly away. Jeremiah was wearing a saddle I didn"t recognize. I undid the girth and handed it to the reverend, then led the horse over to a tree stump and got on bareback. His flanks were warm against me. As I followed after Frank, I saw Roger separate himself from the group and begin to walk toward me, head hanging Then I heard a shot, then saw two more horses, a brown and a chestnut, gallop away from the starting line. All along their course, men called out, "Go, Lizzie!" or "Run, Hawkeye!" And Roland was at least partly right-it was a natural human act to watch them and to favor one over the other, even not knowing either. I favored the mare, the chestnut, as it turned out. Pinning her ears, she stretched out in a long, flat gallop, looking exactly like she was resolved not to lose. The other horse closed to just a neck behind her, but she pinned her ears even flatter to her head and increased her speed. He seemed to slow down, and she opened daylight between them. I looked down at Jeremiah. He was watching everything with interest, and when they pa.s.sed their closest to us, he gave a little crow hop.
Frank, on the mule, hadn"t gotten very far toward town. Roger had stopped dead, gaping.
It was a beautiful sight, the sight of that gleaming mare stretched out at a full run against the white snow, and all the men, rough characters that they were, waving their hats and sticks and seegars and jugs and hands, and shouting, all senseless of themselves and abandoned to the moment. As soon as the mare won, of course, some of the items that had been thrown into the air were flung upon the ground and stomped on, and then the scene changed, and men began paying off their bets, cursing, grinning, pushing each other, slapping each other, taking pulls from their jugs, and blowing into their cold fingers. It took her rider five minutes or so to slow down the mare after they crossed the finish line, while the brown horse was ready to give it up within a few strides. The riders jumped off, and they led the horses past me. A few men glanced in my direction, sobered themselves, smiled, tipped their hats, but the others didn"t notice-possibly were not quite sure what to do with a woman at a race meet, even in K.T., where women went almost everywhere.
Frank and the mule got even farther from town-they were right beside me. I flicked the reins and turned my face resolutely toward the buildings in the distance.
"That filly an"t nothing compared to Jeremiah. He could eat her up. She just looked good because of that nag they put with her."
"I"m displeased with you, Frank."
"I was just saying. I wasn"t suggesting."
"We were very worried. You deliberately hid your intentions from us. Thomas is still worried, and I have to find him and tell him that Jeremiah hasn"t been stolen."
"Jeremiah runs like silk, or like some weasel or something. Like water. You an"t never seen nothing like it."
"Haven"t ever seen anything like it."
"Well, then, you an"t."
"I thought you rode him."
"Naw. One of the boys rode him. I an"t that good a rider. I paid him a dollar."
"You let a stranger ride Jeremiah?"
"You can"t race your own horse, Lidie. Only fools do that. It"s very poor economy, sort of like being your own lawyer."
"What do you know about being your own lawyer?"
"I got my eyes open, don"t I? Horace was his own lawyer once. He lost the money, too." This last Frank spit out as if he could barely let such words lie on his tongue. And it was true that Frank generally made a profit. He said, "Some folks think paying someone to do what they know how to do better than you is a waste of money, but I an"t of that opinion. You can"t do everything yourself."
"Frank, you are trying to pull a veil over my eyes."
"Naw, I an"t. I know you won"t punish me any, and Thomas will look at me sadly and sternly, and I"ll feel bad, but then I"ll remember how Jeremiah looked like something not of this earth when he was running along, and I won"t feel so bad anymore." He gave me a sideways look. "But you don"t even know how bad you should feel, if you never see what I saw. They was gonna give him a go against that sorrel mare, if you let him. That would of been some race."
"I can"t let you race Jeremiah. It isn"t seemly, and Thomas and Charles are looking for you. And I shouldn"t be here among these people. You don"t know who"s here. These aren"t your usual Unitarians and Congregationalists from Ma.s.sachusetts. They talk and look like Missourians, if you ask me. And what about Roger? I"m sure his mother is worried about him, too."
He ignored this last.
"Well, there"s all kinds of folks in Lawrence, and when the races are going, I don"t ask questions. But if you trade with me and go over there to that clump of trees, n.o.body"s there and you can see good. I hate this mule, anyway. He trots like he"s falling to pieces."
"I"m determined not to reward you, Frank."
"Come on, cousin. You an"t never seen nothing like it. And you haven"t ever seen anything like it, either. I went along with you when you wanted to swim the river."
"The footing is snowy. What if Jeremiah hurts himself?"
"Jeremiah is a cat, Lidie. He an"t going to hurt himself."
My misgivings as I watched Frank ride Jeremiah back to the group of men and horses smoking and steaming in the cold air were agonizing. My mind raced to all sorts of tragic endings, but most often to the image of Jeremiah slipping in the snow and breaking a leg, the rider falling off and being killed, and myself having to relate all of these events to Thomas, who should have been after the mail by now but couldn"t be, because I had both the mule and Jeremiah with me, and Charles and Louisa"s one horse wouldn"t pull the wagon with the other mules. So to top it all off, I was letting my husband, the most responsible and judicious of men, fall more deeply into the wrong with every pa.s.sing minute. I stationed myself under the rattling branches of a clump of trees as Frank and Jeremiah came up to the group of men-or rather, were joined by men who saw him approach. The race was arranged in a trice. The chestnut mare had by this time cooled out and rested-she was walking around with a blanket and someone"s coat over her back and neck. These they pulled off, while Frank jumped down and approached one of the men, who promptly took the reins and mounted Jeremiah. Jeremiah stood up alertly now, and I could see him, even from a distance, lift his head and snort. After that, he side-stepped under the new rider and arched over his bit. I might have said he did know what he was about to do.
The air was crystal clear-K.T. clear, we always said, the sort of air that lets you see all the way to the curve of the horizon in the distance. I saw men lead the horses to the starting line. I saw the breath of the horses plume out of their nostrils in the cold. I heard the laughter of the bettors, and shouts-"This"ll be a good one!" "Go, mare!"-then the report of the starter"s pistol. The mare stood between me and Jeremiah for a moment, then Jeremiah leapt out from behind her, already stretched and flying. The mare was no laggard, though. She ran as if her nose were glued to his haunches, for many strides matching him leap for leap, bound for bound. Her ears were pinned to her head. Jeremiah, on the other hand, ran with his ears p.r.i.c.ked forward. They came around the wide curve, and his body seemed to elongate and lower a bit, as if he had made up his mind to buckle down to his work.
Seconds later, they swept past me, her nose still beside his haunch, her ears still pinned, but because I was now on his side, I could see his tail streaming out like smoke against the snow. He did run as if made for it, his back legs stepping well ahead of his front legs, and yet everything effortless and graceful as a breeze riffling through prairie gra.s.ses. They came to the finish line and crossed it. From my angle, it looked as if the mare had gained a foot or two. It was a close race. My heart was throbbing in my head and throat, and I was as warm as I"d been since summer. I threw off my shawl and laid it across the mule"s withers.
As with the earlier race, I could see the men shouting, exclaiming, exchanging money. Once again, the mare was unruly and hard to handle, tired as she must have been. Jeremiah broke to a smart trot, then settled. Frank ran to him with some other men, and when they reached him, the rider jumped off. I could see his grin from where I stood. All the men clapped him on the back. Frank reached out for the horse"s reins, and the rider handed them to him. I decided to get a little closer, so I kicked the mule. I was still in a state of pleased excitement just at the sight of it, as Frank had predicted. The mule trotted toward the group of men, and I saw someone, the Reverend Moss, I realized, throw the blanket he was wearing over Jeremiah. But then the Reverend Moss looked up and around, and when he saw me, he began hurrying the horse, hurrying him a bit carefully and cautiously in my direction. Momentarily he stopped to throw Frank up onto his back, then Roger, who was grinning. They came up to me a few moments later. The reverend was smiling, but he wasn"t grinning.
"Well, ma"am, I"d say that was exceptional, and I thank you. Best take the horse on home now. He"s bushed-that filly gave him a run. I don"t expect"-he glanced over his shoulder-"he thought he would have to try so hard, but she"s a tough one and experienced. Hiram"s raced her all over. He makes money on her, as a rule." He reached up the reins to me. "You"re a fine lady, ma"am, and words of praise for your name will be on the tongues of many this Sabbath evening. Now you"d best be getting off home, ma"am." He thrust the reins into my hand, though I was happy to take them, and then he gave the mule a little slap, and off we went. Jeremiah came along willingly enough, only a little tired from his exertions. Frank and Roger were more than pleased, until I made them dismount and walk.
Frank exclaimed, "They gave a prize, you know. The bettors who won pa.s.sed the hat and gave me fourteen dollars."
"No!"
"I gave the rider two fifty. He said he"d ride the horse anytime."
"Frank!"